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Clear your mind and let it come, he thought and set about his routine. First, he placed the digital clock on the desk’s far left corner and then, after squaring a loose pile of papers with notes scribbled all over them at a right angle with the desk’s other corner, he placed the Goofy lamp on top of the pile and snapped it on, then off, then on one final time. He turned over her photo, the photo at the Falls. Remember: don’t speculate about plot or character and follow Palahniuk’s “egg timer method”– and when it comes, be ready to jump. He adjusted the seat’s height. Breathed in, held it, then exhaled. Just let it come. Finally ready, he placed the notebook in front of him and ran his index finger along the cover’s edge until it came to the bottom corner where he hooked in his finger and opened the book, the spine cracking like old wooden floor boards beneath some terrible weight–just let it come.  

      A half an hour oozed by and nothing came–not one word–and the first seeds of frustration broke from their husks. Alright, alright, he thought putting the pen behind his ear and nodding to himself, no worries, no worries. He rummaged through the desk’s drawer and dug out a bunch of elastic bands which he shot across the room. With his knees tucked up under his chin he pushed his chair away from the desk and spun in a loose little circle across the room to the doorway, where he picked up the wayward elastic bullets. Brimm stared across the room at the notebook and lazily fired some shots at it. Just give it a minute. This damn book picked me, remember? There is something in there, I know it. I just know it. He raised his hands to his temples and tried to will the blank pages to show him a story, a character, a narrative arc, something–anything. 

      The chair’s wheels grumbled over the rough wooden floor as he slid back to the desk and glared at the notebook. “Okay you fucker,” he said realigning himself at the desk, “let’s do this.” But the notebook remained blank and twenty minutes later, it was still blank. Brimm breathed, leaned back, drummed his fingers, eyed the clock–it was quarter after three in the morning. He picked up the book ready to hurl it across the room. He squeezed it in his hands and shook it, his teeth bared. Annoyed, he dropped it back on the desk where it crashed with a thump. He poked the book repeatedly as if trying to pick a fight with it then screamed “What the fuck is the problem?”  

      He flipped to the back and opened the small envelope glued to the back of the notebook. He slipped his finger inside and pulled out a simple cardboard business card. It read:

                               ——————————————————————–

                                                              Hillary Thoms

                                            Books, Bindings, and all things Crafty

                                                  2014 B Water Street. G7F 4M3

                                  e-mail: thecraftsinthecaring@gmail.com

                             ——————————————————————–

He flipped the business card idly and wondered what Hillary Thoms looked like. He pictured a woman in her mid forties, early fifties maybe, with a loosely knit cardigan falling from her narrow shoulders and a halo of cracked and frazzled grey hair crowning her head. He saw her, diminutive but not demure, in a little shop surrounded by beads and scissors and swaths of leather, hunching over an unfinished book, her thick yet dexterous hands working carefully. “Thanks for the Christmas gift Mrs. Thoms,” he said aloud and replaced the business card, confident that his story would write itself.

      He got up and looked out the bay window at the grey clouds that were rolling onto the house’s across the street which, except for the sagging lines of tiny Christmas lights blinking and twinkling and swaying from the eaves, were shut down for the night. He leaned onto the sill and a chill crept in through the window casting his elbow with a crisp coolness while he smoked a Player’s cigarette. Outside, the wind rattled the window and the trees. He inhaled his final draw and turned to crush the cigarette in the ashtray at his desk when a movement, a shadow of a life, caught his eye. He turned back and gazed out the window. A lone figure carrying a black briefcase came into view and trundled up the street, leaving a trail of shapeless black boot prints following behind him.

      A million questions snuck into Brimm’s mind. He couldn’t figure it out. What’s a man in a dark trench coat and a black fedora doing roaming the streets? And at this hour? His writer’s mind kicked in. Narratives formed. Ignited by the possibilities, Brimm rolled down the blinds so the man wouldn’t see him and peeked through–watching.

      The man kept a slow plodding pace, now and then stopping to look at the houses or the cars in the driveways, but never for very long and never with any real intent. Try as he might, Brimm couldn’t discern a clear pattern in the man’s actions–it all seemed random and quite harmless, he had to admit. But something tugged at Brimm and he leaned farther into the window trying to figure it out. He watched the man as he sauntered through the freezing wind and the blustering snow, down passed the red Post Office mailbox and the little white picket fence surrounding the old grey house on the corner, his briefcase swinging merrily by his side in time to his peppy little jaunt, swinging and swaying as if he were humming a pleasant tune on a gorgeous summer day, when suddenly the man stopped and reached out his hand to touch a big chestnut tree that grew on the sidewalk between the two street poles, and then slowly he raised his head admiring the tree trunk and up beyond that to the branches that arched and cracked over the middle of the street and finally touched the sky and, as if he were following a vapor trail, the man looked upwards, higher and higher, his head turning slowly up over his shoulder, then arching behind it, rotating further and further, like an owl, until he faced the direction of Thomas’s window and stared. 

      The man had a long face and his eyes nailed into Brimm’s own. Brimm was stuck; unable to move. It was as if the man had found the object of a lifelong search and wasn’t going to let in get away again. 

      The blinds snapped as Tomas leapt away from the window and into the shadows. His heart drum rolled.

      Jesus. What was that all about? That man…. He….

      He crept back to the window and peeked out through the blinds. He scanned the street again up, down, and up again but there was no sign of the man–it was as if he had disappeared. In a fit of fear, Brimm rushed across the room and yanked the chain across the door. His mind scudded and skipped over the irrational: Where the hell did he go? Did he see me? People just don’t disappear. He can’t be coming here–he can’t be! Can he?

      Sounds picked up. The wind shook the trees and their arthritic branches scratched long gnarly nails along the outside of his apartment. Inside, the fridge kicked in, groaning.

     What the hell am I worried about? I’m freaking for nothing. It’s just some dude. But the way he looked at me. It was… not right. 

     A few minutes ticked by before Brimm relaxed and bit by bit his nerves resettled into a rickety rigidity. What am I worried about? he repeated chuckling to himself. He scanned his room. There was no christmas tree, no presents, no jewelry, no nothing really. It’s not like he’s going to get anything anyway.  

      He strolled into the kitchen and fixed a drink. The kitchen was a compact room with a small table and two lime green chairs wedged between a fridge and a gas range stove. Two letter magnets, F and U, dropped to the floor as he pulled a Girl Guides calendar from off of the side of the fridge and put an “X” through December 25th. Not much time left. I gotta get this story down. I’ve just go to. If I get it down and get it to her, maybe then I can get her back. A dank smell of stale cabbage and freon burped out at him as he opened the refrigerator and took in the contents. There was a half eaten package of O’Grady’s sliced ham and a loaf of white bread, two brown eggs and a bottle of Heinz 57. He pulled out the other item, a chilled bottle of London Gin, and took a long, hard swig. 

      He lit a Player’s Light and smoked it. It ain’t gonna happen, he thought and guessed it was well passed four in the morning. He drank more. It’s just not going to happen. The booze rounded out the edges of his mind while he sat at the table drinking, erasing his frustrations about the notebook, the story, his problems, whatever. Fuck it all, he thought and sat and stared above the kitchen table where a small window acted as a frame for a  picture he had cut out of a Time magazine and hung there. It was a black and white photo of a ticker tape parade. Brimm stared at it and drank. About an hour passed in this way and with the bottle nearly empty, he slumped at the table and shut his eyes. 

       The thoughts of the man and the notebook and the Chinese man and everything else that was odd that day slid from his mind. 

       He awoke an hour later with his head still buzzing from the booze. He got up from the table, stretched, and went back into the living room when it struck him–it was that same feeling he had had in the Chinese man’s shop: a kind of cleansing clarity, a crystal certainty like it was all there, awash, given to him by some freak insight, laid out in full: the setting, the characters, the plot–everything. 

     He rushed into the other room and over to his desk. Of course, some things’ll have to be ironed out like names and some locations and a few subplots, yes, yes, of course a plot point or two will have to be worked out--typical, typical, he thought smiling, and of course I’m going to have to figure out what symbols to use–but I can get it done. I can do it! Ha! Don’t forget symbols! And metaphors–

     He scratched one word on the notebook, feeling the doors open but as he was about to write another there was a knock, knock, knock at the door. The sound shattered his concentration and his story blew away like leaves on a lawn. In his mind the bits and pieces that remained slowly faded back and away and dissolved into the neurochemical percolate. Gone. 

     Knock, knock, knock. He shot an eye at the door with murder on his mind. He looked at his notebook and it was terribly, awfully blank. Blank except for one simple word. And so was he: blank except for one simple word: “fuck.” 

     Knock, knock. 

    Who’s there? he sneered and laid down his pen. 

    It’s that fuckin’ guy with the hat, he thought and swiped the blinds aside and looked out the window. The clouds were gone now and the sun streaked the sky in an orange amber yellow. Living room lights yellowed the houses across the street. The storm had ended but inside of himself, he felt another one was beginning. 

     Knock, knock, knock. 

     He strode to the door and opened it a little, not enough so that the chain stretched taut, but enough to sneak a look at the man in the doorway. The hallway was dark and there was clearly a lack of jingle bell cheer floating through his apartment. A wall sconce illuminated a man with a long dark coat, a fedora, and a black briefcase which he carried in his right hand–his knuckles were white. 

     “Good day, sir” the man said producing a business card. “My name is Steven, Steven James and I was wondering if I could….”

     “I don’t care what you were wondering. It’s Christmas and I….” 

     “Yes sir, I know,” the man said smiling. Brimm noticed that one tooth, the front left one was cracked. “Merry Christmas. Isn’t this a truly glorious season?” 

     “I suppose so,” Brimm said playing along to get a better look. It’s him, it’s definately him. 

     “Well, sir, how about a set of Gideon’s bibles to remind you of the true spirit of the holiday season? I got both Testaments–the Old and the New. And these?” he said producing a thin black book from his breast pocket, “These are free! Yes sir, a new set of psalms by Reverend….”

     “I gotta get back to work,” Brimm mumbled. A fucking Bible thumper! I can’t believe a shit like this took my story from me. 

     “Work, sir, on Christmas Day, the day of our Savior’s birth?”

     “Yeah, I’m working” Brimm said looking into his apartment at his desk and the notebook. “The same as you.”

     “Touché, sir!” the man said gripping the briefcase. “But when it comes to the message of God….”

     “Look fella, I gotta take off. Good luck with the sales,” he said and shut the door. Just go buddy. It’s best for you if you do. Please! Please just go away. He waited for the sound of footsteps to fade down the stairwell, but instead an awkward silence hung heavily around the door’s circumference and then a knock, knock, knock interrupted it. 

     “Sir?” the salesman’s soft voice drifted through the door. “I know you are still there, sir.”

     Brimm stared at the door and breathed. 

     “Sir, I think you should open the door, sir.”

     He dropped his head to his chest. Squeezed his eyes shut–breathed.

     “This book, sir,” the salesman continued. “This book can help you with your problems.”

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

You shall have a place outside the camp and you shall go out to it; and you shall have a stick with your weapons; and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it, and turn back and cover up your excrement. 

                                                                                                  – Deuteronomy 23: 12

 

       When Jack Rankin finally navigated himself out of a cavern of nightmares, he awoke lying on a concrete nook some forty-five feet below the oldest city in North America. Everything was dark, damp, and disorienting. From the inside pocket of his black Company jacket he dug out his Zippo and snapped it on, a flange of light dented the darkness. He could just make out a network of tunnels knifing off into the darkness while at his feet a sluiceway sent a river of condoms, puke, and urine swirling off into the city’s underbelly. Pheilm Rankin was at a crossroads of sludge and shit. 

       He rose up and tried to get his bearings. Through the flickering lantern of his Zippo he could see a labyrinth of irregular cavities, niches, and recesses pockmarking the walls. He stood up on the ledge and pressed his ear to the wall. A faint hum filtered down from the immortal city above and he thought he could hear the muffled rumble of cars rifling down the street, someone (who he pictured in a grey business suit) yelled for a taxi, a horn faded off on the ribbon of Doppler’s Law and although he normally detested this collision of sound, it was comforting to him now. But the feeling didn’t last long. New, alien sounds crept out of the darkness. A moan swept through the corridors. Pipes rattled. Things creaked. 

       Something drip, drip, dripped. 

       And he followed it. Reckless and confident at first he cursed loudly as he knocked his head off of a pipe or smashed his knee on a steel-wheeled gauge. But he carried on believing that the drip must be coming from a manhole, his way to freedom. 

       “I’m almost there,” he reassured himself as the sound of the dripping pipe increased. But, invariably, when he thought that the drip was just around the corner, it would leap off far away into the darkness and he would start out again trying to find it. 

       His thirst burned, but he was unconcerned. All he had to do was find the drip and the manhole. It all seemed easy enough. But at this point any true understanding of his situation was far, far off. How could he have guessed that the darkness and the rats would become his friends and allies, the sewage his sustenance?

       Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

 

     Mohammed Bin Abajazhineer picked up a deep blood red book that was laying next to the black bag and read. I again wondered about the black bag’s purpose. 

     “‘It is written,’” he read, his long bony finger cruising back and forth over the page (actually, it slid from right to left, which really means that his hand was roving forth and back over the page, but whatever). “‘That some time before the Light of Arabar cooled the land and a full four centuries before Qandisa roamed the Earth seducing the first man, Jain, there came upon the Earth a race known as the Binnerani, a race who arose from the middle of the Meditterrean, thirteen in number, neither man nor woman, twelve feet in height from head to foot, with hands that carried an extra finger on their right hand, eleven fingers in all, and were born upon feet as long as shields which allowed them to walk over the surface of the ocean and unto the land.’”

     At this point he lifted his head from the book, flipped a couple of pages and continued.

     My mind reeled: the Binnerani? Shoes? London? The Mediterranean? What the hell was all this about? The whole thing had taken a weird and wonderful turn. Granville was taking notes. 

     “I shall just jump ahead a few centuries and… ah… here it is,” Bin Abazjh said flipping pages and then continuing. “‘In the sixth century BC, King Mahudummed III found and transcribed an ancient Binnerani text. In this text he tells us that, ‘the Binnerani language was the language of the Polvo a Modo–an ancient relative of the octopuii–which is more of a color than a sound and is really not a sound at all. It is through this color/sound that they taught The People of Lixus and Mogador the secrets of Sabbahlah.” 

     He stopped reading and with the book hanging by his side, he addressed us again. “I am a direct descendant of the line of Mogador and my people are the last of a proud and strong warrior intellegensia sect. I am the fifth son and have been entrusted with the secrets of the Binnerani and the Sabbahlah.” With this strange admission, his long pointy face tucked deep into his chin and darkened. His brow set like concrete across his face and then he nodded at the Stairwell Assassin who walked over from the door and stood back onto us and rummaged through the black duffel bag. He pulled out a bunch of black bandannas and walked around the room, tossing them on our desk. “And,” Mohammed Bin Abajazhineer said, “I intend to keep these secrets safe.”

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

       My chi was way off. I tried to regain it again and resorted to chewing on my straw. It didn’t work. I scratched my scruff and headed in. I wasn’t sure what to expect: a strange faerie light? Black candles and clouds of frankincense and myrrh? Rusty chains and torture devices? But as I entered I noticed that, except for the three Insane Assassins from Parts Unknown fanned out in front of the window at the back, everything was normal. The forth one, shorter yet stockier than the rest and who I recognized immediately as the Stairwell Assassin, stood next to Dr. Brimm’s desk at the front of the classroom. He was whispering into the ear of a tall, rail thin man dressed in strange, maybe African clothing. It had to be the olive skinned guy Granville saw earlier. The Stairwell Assassin was nodding and uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huhing to whatever it was the olive skinned guy was saying and after a minute or so, the Stairwell Assassin left the room.

       Dr. Brimm wheeled his seat to the left side of his desk and sat down in full view of the class. The olive skinned guy stood next to him with his arms crossed. “Class,” Dr. Brimm said picking at something on his pants then brushing it away with a few quick swipes of his hand. “This is Mohammed Bin Abajazhineer.” With his introduction complete, the tall olive skinned man swept his hands across his chest and bowed his head to the floor. It was a grand gesture which suggested that something was about to commence.

       “Mr. Abajazhineer and I met just once, a brief moment that I have not thought of for more than thirty-odd years now. It was back in the fall of ‘56 when I was a first year student at Eton college,” Dr. Brimm continued, “classes were still three weeks away and I longed to step into the city; to turn London from some two dimensional textbook topic into something vivd and in color.” He chuckled and locked his hands behind his head. I could see that he was back there walking the streets. His voice gained speed and tumbled like scree as memories, words, and syntax fell into place. “Everything was steeped in madness and I fell in love with it all. Each brick had a story to tell; collectively, they told a saga of swords and sorcerers, conquerers and slaves. But at the same time I was overwhelmed. Everything in London was on such a grand scale that I felt out of step; an instrument not in tune with the rest of the orchestra. I still remember the blearing car horns and the stolid sneer of the high rise buildings and the huge stretches of concrete, but most of all I remember the madness of the hustle and bustle. My first week walking down Kensington Avenue I kept turning around apologizing to the businessmen who were rushing along with their briefcases swinging, bumping me–one, two, ten, twenty times–and each time I’d turn around to apologize but they just strode on by, charging into the hidden calculations of mergers and takeovers. They didn’t even notice me.”

       As if on cue, the door opened and the Stairwell Assassin entered with a large black duffel bag in his hand. He plopped it on the desk and returned to his post in front of the door his arms crossed at the wrist and hanging loosely in front of his belt. I looked at Richard and he mouthed “the-black-bag-outside-earlier.” I nodded and returned my attention to the front of the class. I could feel the pendulous weight of history swinging back and forth between the past and present, from this strange man from foreign lands to Dr. Brimm. Something had gone on here. Things were building. I leaned forward in my seat; everything was unusual and worth listening to.

       But what was in the black bag? I was distracted by it and couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was a loose lump and didn’t seem to contain anything. My mind raced. Was something in it or something going inside it? Which was it?

       “Anyway,” Dr. Brimm said picking up the thread again and bouncing me back into the conversation. He had is orator on. He was once again the Doc we loved to listen to; his earlier gloom had evaporated. “London is a shoe place, right? Oxford wing tips, Crofts, Allen-Edmonds, Berluttis. Ya know, coming from a small town with nothing but hand me downs and ratty old shoes that smelled to high heavens with the layers of cardboard that we stuffed inside of them, well, I guess shoes were an important thing to me. It was the first thing I bought; a brand new pair of blake-brown Crockett & Joneses.”

       “They got me through my first two years and that is when I met Mr. Bin Abajazhineer. It was nothing really. I was in Hyde Park listening to someone rant about something or other and I saw him under a tree in a Gandorra similar to the one he is wearing now. That, and a pair of sandals. I got up and went over there and handed him my shoes; he seemed to need them more than I did. We didn’t speak. It was an exchange, that’s all. He took the shoes and walked away. And I walked home in my socks.”

       “But why is he here?” I asked astounded by the crack I had made in the proceedings. I had jumped up onto a stage, naked and willing.

       The olive skinned man turned his intense gaze upon me. His eyes were a light dusty brown that had faded to the color of worn monk’s robes. They could’ve been kelp green, though, it was hard to tell. He seemed to consider me for a while and I felt pinned to my seat. “Yes friend, that is the question: why am I here? So without further ado–nothing like Western impatience to move a good story along–it is time to start the calculations. You see my impetuous friend in the back there, I have come to repay a debt.”

       A debt. It was too fabulous to endure. I felt my brain ticcing Tourettically: words, questions, predictions from all parts of my brain filled my mind. I needed to know everything right away, right now. I couldn’t figure it out and I couldn’t wait. I needed to sharpen my powers. I needed more T.V.

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

 

“The saddest thing about getting old is that no one comes to visit anymore.”

     That was the wholly abject and utterly surprising analysis that Dr. Brimm offered our Comparative Literature graduate class late in the fall of 1995 and with midterms looming just a few short weeks away, it was a response that baffled the class and seemed completely at odds with my own interpretation of the obscure Zen Koan that he had assigned to us a week earlier. I was worried and re-read my notes. Suseki’s view of the Koan differed and I thought of bringing this to Dr. Brimm’s attention, but something seemed wrong with him. Usually erudite and engaging, today his words seemed to wheeze out of him like soot from an old Irish factory. I decided to leave it alone. He looked like he needed to be alone. Or was alone. 

     “Alright class. Twenty minute break and we’ll pick up with Akutagawa.”

     The class shuffled out into the hallway and I thought again of mentioning my concern, but by the time I packed my things and headed to the front of the class Dr. Brimm had already gotten up from his perch on the corner of his desk and strolled over to the window. As I left the classroom to join the others I looked over my shoulder and saw him staring out the window at the parking lot below. His posture was one of pensive pins and needles: he had one hand stuffed into his pants pocket and the other came up and scratched the back of his neck. 

     Granville Marsman and Richard Partridge joined me outside for a smoke and a chat. It was a bitter fall day. Walrus sized clouds crushed their large dark bellies into the granite grey sky and the buildings surrounding the courtyard contracted in the cold, huddled closer and shivered. Several crows swooped through the sky and one perched on the clock tower. It was 3: 30. 

     “You guys notice anything weird about Doc?” I asked inhaling my cigarette. 

     “Weird?” Granville asked. As always he was far off and disinterested; for the four years that I had known him he hardly ever raised his eyes from up off of the ground, a posture that lent him an air of tragic intellectualism. He avoided most things, like talk of his past or his family or his old girlfriends, preferring instead to dig deep into discussions on Sartre or Nietzche. I knew better, though. Whatever was eating at him was more tragic than intellectual. He was haunted by something, something about the soul, I was sure, but I thought it was lame. I mean, all forms of spiritual machinations had ended with the advent of the personal computer. Everything was modern now. Even the old. 

     “No, not really,” Richard said. I liked Richard. He was a good head and good with the ladies, particularly the undergrads, and good with odd-angled insights that he brought up in class. He was into Kerouac and Burroughs and all of that existential druggy Po-Mo stuff that I thought was crap. I never got to the point of telling him, though, because I knew a debate would ensue and I didn’t want that from Richard. Besides, I liked his passion for the stuff; these days, anyone with passion was an anomaly and I collected anomalies–even fuck-ups like Granville. “I totally dug his analysis though, man. The loneliness of old age. Perfect, but I didn’t see it that way. Do now though, man. That guy hits a home run every time.” As Richard said this he swung an imaginary bat and with his hand arched over his brow he watched the “homerun” soar up and over the gothic grey Arts building. I thought he looked like a golfer, though, and I hated golf. It was a sport for environmental butchers with Rolexes. “Dead on, baby. The guy is gold.”

     We smoked in silence for another four or five minutes and then I tossed my butt on the ground. The wind swept it away and I watched as it curled and rolled around the building. I kicked a pebble. 

     We knew very little about Dr. Brimm. The last thing I learned I had gleaned from The Muse, the campus rag that I had submitted several pieces of poetry and short stories to. A couple of years back when I was in my second year and undecided about what I wanted to major in, I had read an article that said his wife had died and that his two sons would be returning from Europe. Students were asked to respect the man’s need for privacy. The article was succinct yet delicate and although I don’t remember all of the details now, I do remember it being a heartbreaking story. 

     Other than that there was the typical stuff surrounding a star professor. He had published several important books that added to his field and had hobnobbed with composers and artists and editors of the top newspapers. It was also a well known fact that sometime back in the early seventies he had even participated on a panel for the BBC as a contributing intellectual for a six part mini-series special about the role of the intellectual in a post-consummerist society. He, Edward Said and Michel Foucault were all there, captured in lo-fi and grainy black and white. Dr. Brimm was cool: the guys loved his Che Gueverra badass attitude and the girls loved his thick silver hair with its currents of black floating from the side of his head to the tuft of curls grouped at the back of his neck. His sharp almost Italian or Basque features increased his mysterious look and it was rumored that he had had many chances with his students, although there was never any firm confirmation that anything happened. I never thought it did. That didn’t seem his style. 

     “Hey, look at that.” 

     I looked over and Granville was pointing to a black limo with tinted windows and two strange pendant flags in the front corners of the hood. The flags were a deep blood red with a golden star shaped like a pentagram. The flags snapped and snarled in the wind. We waited for someone to get out, but nothing happened. It was incongruous with the rest of the scene. After a minute or so, a large man in a dark suit got out of the front driver’s side and went to the back and popped the trunk. He lifted out a large black duffel bag and with the bag hanging by his side he headed across the lot and into the front door of the Arts building. 

     We volleyed a few guesses. Richard said that it might be some visiting professor whose field was Wiccan Chanting Traditions and Demonology. Granville guessed that it was that rich financial backer we had been reading about who wanted to build a privately run research facility for oil and gas. 

     “Yeah, man” Richard mused, a wry smile cutting across his face. “And what the hell does Satan have to do with the oil and gas industry anyway?” 

     We chuckled and headed back inside. Class was due to start in another five minutes, so we grabbed a quick coffee from the vending machine that was tucked just inside the entrance and raising our classes to cheer our health we guzzled it back as if it were a shot of tequilla. We scooted back to class. 

     On the way we cut through the atrium and headed up a short flight of stairs. As we went up a large man with black hair and a black pinstripe suit made of impressive material, took up half of the stairway. We slid passed him, our jeans scraping along the walls as we went up. At the top of the stairs I looked back at the man. He was stone faced, maybe Middle Eastern or North African, and I half expected to see a white wire curling down from his ear into the back of his suit but there wasn’t one that I could see. 

     We exchanged confused glances as we turned into the hallway and headed towards our classroom where a large group was waiting outside of the door. Murmurs choked the air like cigarettes in a blues bar. The ones closest to the door bobbed and dipped their heads in order to get a glimpse through the door’s vertical window, but it was frosted and I knew that it was a useless effort. 

     “What the fuck is going on, man?” Richard asked. “Did the fire alarm go off or something?” 

       “I dunno,” I said. “But I wanna find out. Come on.”

     We picked up our pace and joined the group. Richard did a quick re-con mission and came back a minute later to inform Granville and I that he had talked to Monica and a few of the others. No one knew a thing. Nothing certain, anyway. 

     What was certain was that the door was locked and nothing could be heard beyond the door. Neither could shadows be seen sliding passed the frosted window. Beck Dinn claimed to be the first to get back from the break and he said that he saw Dr. Brimm dash into the classroom with a pile of blank sheets under his arm. DInn guessed that he must be inside making a surprise test or something. Everyone knew that was bullshit. Beck Dinn was a dick who looked for attention anywhere he could find it. Another rumor rose up rhizomatically with the message that Dr. Brimm and a woman had gone inside–another totally discreditable notion. The final goofball rumor was that he actually wasn’t in there, that it was some kind of joke. That rumor I liked; but I wasn’t buying it. I wasn’t buying any of them.

     The Potatoes, a group of fat ugly grad nerds with no souls and no ideas of their own but the ones they recited from the books that they got out of the library, snivelled and snotted in the corner. So close to other human beings and frightfully on the edge of social interaction, they took to nervously fixing their pink or green or red plastic clip on bows. I hated the Potatoes’s and their grimy skin with its oily sheen. And their hair was awful; there was nothing to it; it hung like limp lettuce around their ears and if there was one thing that disgusted me in this world, it was limp lettuce. I looked passed them, down the hallway, and three large men in dark suits came striding up the corridor, their shoulders rolling like bulls. 

     Richard nudged me in the ribs. 

       “What?”

     “You see that, man?”

       “Of course, Dick.” That was meant to hurt; payback for the shot in the ribs. 

     “Just like the dude in the stairway.”

       “Yeah, no kidding.” I needed a smoke and whipped out a straw that I kept on me at all times and started to chew. 

     As the men neared the Potatoes scattered, others turned their heads and pretended not to notice, either tying their shoelaces or reading notice boards, while the ones in their way made a wide respectable berth for the men. Nothing was said as they passed: It was an act of psychic acceptance–let us pass or your body would learn how to bend at strange and obtuse angles. 

     They opened the door and filed in. For the split second the door remained open, I stood on my tippy-toes trying get a glimpse but as soon as I had a chance to see something, another person ahead of me would bob up in my line of sight. 

     “Did you see that?” Granville hissed at my side. 

       “See what, dude? Let us on the inside or you’ll be up out the upside.” Ugh. Richard and his damn Beat talk. He unapologeticallty burrowed the Beats’s jargon and I thought this at odds with the depresso-who-fuckin’-cares attitude of the mid nineties.  What the hell did that mean anyway?

     “I saw a man. A tall man with dark with olive skin. He was wearing some kind of beany-type hat thing with weird colors. And he was tall, real tall.”

       “How tall?”

     “l don’t know. This tall,” he said shooting his arm straight up over his head, “and I think he was wearing sunglasses. And–” He screwed up his face. 

       “And what?”

     “And… I think Dr. Brimm was lying down on his desk. Like he was on an operation table or something.”

     Apparently others had seen something too and a mechanized buzz something not far removed from the sound of processing data filled the hallway and I was pulled along with the rest of them into the quixotic swirl. So. He was in there alright. There was no doubt. But who the hell were these men? And what did they want with Dr. Brimm? 

     “Jesus, man, do you think this has something to do with that limo outside?”

       “Definitely,” I said. “But I’m not sure what it is all about. That flag looked evil.”

      ”Like something from the crypt, man”

        ”Or lower and darker.”

      The door remained shut for another fifteen minutes and slowly, bit by bit, people formed into smaller groups and waited. A constant murmur of debate hung over their heads and filled the corridor. We decided we needed a plan. One idea was to run back down to the parking lot and catch a look through the window, that was Richard’s stupid idea. The room was too high and we didn’t have an extension ladder.  A second later he came up with another doozy. 

     “Lets go to the can and pop out one of the ceiling tiles. We can crawl over the hallway and to the classroom and then—”

     “–And then what, Richard?” I said. “Crash into the classroom n’ greet Dr. Brimm and his Insane Assassins from Parts Unknown with a handshake and a box of chocolate peanuts? This ain’t The Goonies, ya know.” 

     I turned and looked at Granville. His eyes were on the floor and he had his hands clasped behind his back like he was some kind of Buddhist monk chewing on the intricacies of a Mahayana sutra. He liked to imitate Asian poses. “Yeah, Dick,” he said. “That’s a stupid idea.”

     “Shut up, Martian.”

       “Whatever,” Granville muttered. He hated that nickname. In our defense, we only used it when necessary–actually, that’s not true–we used it whenever we wanted to. I mean, come on, his last name was Marsman for Christ’s sake, how could we not? 

     I zoned out while Granville and Richard yapped about different ways to infiltrate the room. I needed to figure it out. I had to get in. I scanned the crowd next to the door and I noticed Geoff and Roland eyeing each other but not saying anything. They were the kind of mopes who, in a few short years, would invite complete strangers to be their friends on Facebook and lost their virginity to blow up dolls. I took a minute to read their minds. This was a habit I had developed to entertain myself when I was a kid, but kind of drove me nuts now.  

–Lets bust the door down, Roll.

–But we’ve got no weapons, Geo. Just this stupid pen. 

–The pen is mightier than the sword, Roll!

–No it isn’t, Geo. You saw The Maxmen of Oren Five. Remember what happened to them? The Maxmen were reduced to sniveling cave dwellers. And why? Why were they nothing more than inhuman scum!? Because of laser guns and space ships, that’s why, Geo. Guns and spaceships are mightier than the pen, Geo. Period. And besides, don’t you remember Rand’s last speech, ‘Gather ’round men! This is our moment of glory.The time to prove that Maxmen will not die without a fight! We need to be strong! Gather our forces! We need to fight as one. And if we are going to win the war we need to–

     “Deploy the ships! Deploy the ships!” I yelled at the topp of my lungs.

     Everyone fell silent and turned to stare at me. This was the most troubling aspect of reading people’s minds: one got carried away sometimes. Undeterred and with the slow embarrassing grace of a sea slug, I lowered my right hand, which, for some reason I had stabbed upwards towards the florescent lights as I screamed out my epiphany, and turned towards the classroom, my brow set, and issued forth the following decree. “Fellows of the written word,” I announced in my best Rand Maxman voice. “Waiting here is pissing me off! I’m going in.” 

     The crowd made an even broader path for me than they did for the Insane Assassins from Parts Unknown. I felt powerful. Like King Kong, Rumplestillskin and Queen Elizabeth all rolled into one, swept along by the tide of bravery and courage that I, the Moon Man, had set in motion. Calm and collected, I waded forth, a World War I fighting Ace with amplified vision. The posters on the bulletin board next to our classroom floated on the cork background with a strange luminous intensity. One was on red paper and advertised a mixer this Saturday night. Another was for The Womaniquins, the campus punk/alt-rock/country band.   

     I reached the door. It was larger than I remembered. Like a weightlifter I squared myself in front of the door. People huddled around me in various poses of anxiety: one of the Potatoes, Bertha or Belinda or something, had hooked her hand over her mouth in a bad imitation of that Edward Munch painting, Beck Dinn chewed on his thumb and in front of me, Geo and Roll, clasped their hands about their waists, their knees shaking. 

     I inhaled a long, slow breath and held it in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut and raised my hand then brought it down to hammer on the door. Miraculously, I meet nothing but air. I swiped my hand again and again. But nothing. Slowly, I opened my eyes and looming there before me was Dr. Brimm’s dark angular face. I tucked my chin into my neck and blinked a few times. I tried to read his face, but it was a weird collision of opposites and hard to read. 

     “Okay class, come on in.”

     I turned and cocked a smile at my classmates trying to conceal the thud stomping my chest. Richard tagged me on the shoulder, “Deploy the ships, man? What the hell was that all that about?”

     “Maxmen of Oren Five.”

       “Wha–”

     “Just get in there.”

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]]

Damn Jesus holidays’ll be the death of me yet, Thomas Brimm grumbled half aloud half to himself as he trundled down the empty side street towards the Write Tools Stationary Shop. He looked at his watch–it was five minutes to midnight, Christmas Eve, dark, with a rabid wind snarling and biting at his oversized Army Surplus parka. Just up ahead a lone pool of amber light spilled out of the storefront window and onto the ice-slagged street. He took this as a good sign.

       Brass bells tinkled overhead as he shuffled inside. A cozy fire-log warmth sat in the store and a brisk shiver iced his spine. A notebook. It was the last thing on his to-do list: he had gone to Macey’s and picked up the gin and the cigarettes, took the cross town to Solbey’s for the power cord and a box of frozen chicken pot pies and now this, The Write Tools Stationary Shoppe, this was his last stop. As he stomped his boots on the the brown welcome mat, an old Chinese man popped his head up from behind a cranky looking cash register and nodded distractedly at Brimm, who nodded back and scanned the store with his drug stained eyes. It was the kind of bookstore he liked: everything slightly off kilter and squat with a musty dome of nicotine-stained light hanging over everything, books poked everywhere, stacked willy-nilly, in a neat, yet chaotic order that necessitated a semi-conscientious book hunt. He loved the hunt too. But not tonight, he reminded himself. Got a lot of work to do yet.

       “You open?” Brimm asked turning his attention back to the old man. “Sure, sure,” the Chinese man said without looking up from his paperwork. “Take you time.”

       “Hey thanks,” he said back, “but I gotta get going ya know. It’s late and all. So, ah, listen, I was wondering if you got any of those Faber-Castell Notebooks? The Limited Edition ones with the hard covers and the embossed silver lettering. I need a black one.”

       The old man put down his pen and looked up at Brimm. His square face was rather too large for his thin coat hanger shoulders, but its size only emphasized his eyes which were the worn color of monk’s robes. “So,” the old man asked chewing on the arm of his glasses and slouching back in his chair and slumping against the armrest, a pose that lent him an air of dispassionate intellectualism. “Why you want one of those notebooks for?”

       Brimm groaned. Hadn’t it been this way all day? Incompetence lurking at every corner, everyone conspiring to prevent him from getting his errands done and back to his desk? He looked down at the plastic Solbey’s bag hanging at his side and let his mind drift like a snowbank over the day. First there had been the bastard in the snowplow who piled the snow onto his front step and the obligatory hour of shoveling; then, there was the fool at the liquor store who argued about the sales price on the bottle of gin; the power cord, he had to admit, hadn’t been too traumatizing, but the weather was shitty and getting worse, and now–now–there was this little gremlin with his questions about his tastes in notebooks.

       “Well, why do you want that kinda book for? Mister…?” The old man repeated, his voice curling higher in pitch and leveling off as he waited for an answer. The old man’s snobbish air had evaporated. Now, there materialized the near-to-condescending smile of the friendly neighborhood proprietor. Brimm played off this quick shift in temperament and played along. “Brimm, Thomas Brimm” he said, squeezing his plastic bag closer to his leg. And why the hell not? Tis the goddamned season.

       “Well, Mr. Brimm. What do you want a Fidel Castro book for?”

       “Just ’cause I like ‘em, I guess,” he said letting the slip pass.

       “I know the ones you’re talking about but they betty betty cheap. Not good for your purposes, I don’t think so.” The old man plucked his glasses out of his mouth and held them up to the light, examining them for grease stains. Brimm waited as the old man searched then cleaned his glasses with the hem of his beige guayabera shirt. “This is an important question you know, Mr Brimm, what you purpose is. Anyway, anyway. Drawing or writing?” he asked suddenly, then stuffed his glasses back in his mouth. “There’s a big difference.”

       “For writing, I guess.”

       “You guess?” the Chinese man chuckled. “I think you know. I can see that writer’s slump in you. It’s in your shoulders. I mean, not that you are in a slump or anything, it’s just that you got a writer’s slump… to your shoulders. Anyway, anyway,” the old man barreled on, “slump or no slump, you don’t need that Castro book for writing–that’s the problem.”

       Brimm knocked his shoulders back. What is he getting at? I’m not in no slump. “So, where is it?” he said trying to get the conversation back on track.

       “That’s not the one for you.” The old man replied his attention still plastered on the yellow legal notepad. “I’m telling you, a notebook has to be just right.”

       “Just right, huh?”

       “Ye-up, just right” the old man chirped. “And don’t forget,” he said leaning forward and looking over his glasses. “You break the block with the right tools.”

       That was it. Enough oriental b.s. Brimm angled in and pointed what he hoped was a menacing finger. “Look. Enough of this cryptic crossword mumbo-jumbo, alright? No more crap about slumps and problems and stuff. I just want to know if you’ve got any Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebooks. Not Fidel, either. But Faber, Fa-ber.” There. That last bit should do it.

       “Hey-ey,” the old Chinese man whined then sat up and snapped the yellow notepad from off of the counter. “No offense, okay?” He said jerking his thumb towards the window. “It’s my slogan, that’s all. Your book’s in da back.”

       Thomas looked out the window and watched the store’s sign swing in the wind. On the other side of the road a million billion particles of snow whirled into a cyclone, grew in radiance, achieved stasis, collapsed, picked up again, twisted, fell. Oh, to see a world in a flake of snow, Brimm thought and left the old man at the counter fully aware that he was not going to get another word out of him anyway–even if he did apologize, which he wasn’t about to do.

        He wandered down the Used Books aisle surveying the collection of poetry and novels, a faint thwip, thwip, thwip, following in his wake as he ran his fingers along the spines’s of Lethem’s, Miller’s, Pynchon’s, Roth’s. His mind drifted over the titles: Mailer’s “American Dream,” Ellis’s “American Psycho,” Swift’s “Last Orders”… Order. Was that what the old guy was getting at? That he needed to see the patterns swirling under the surface of his life? Was his recent writing slump–well, maybe not so recent; it had been five years now–and the slump in his shoulders one and the same thing? But he had produced four books of notes all ready. Things were rolling. And in just five weeks! It was all there. Alive. He could see the patterns forming; just waiting there for him to organize into real literature, too. He smiled at the thought. One day his novel would be sitting between Anton Breton and Charles Bukowski–a nice place to be.

       He pulled out a dog-eared special edition of The New York Trilogy and turned it over. It was three bucks. Three shitty bucks. He looked back at the counter where the old Chinese man was slumped over his paper work. Maybe he’s not so bad, he thought, a soft petal of admiration tickling his throat as he replaced the book and headed towards the back. The old man’s comments gnawed at him, though. It was as if he had held out a message, but in such a circuitously bullshit Zen manner that Brimm couldn’t even be bothered trying to figure it out. Was there something about order and life and purpose that he was supposed to piece together? Foolishness, he thought. And besides that Paul Coehlo New Age spiritist crap is all just bullshit anyway. He let it slide.

       The back of the store smelled faintly of old cigars and burlap sacks. The ceiling was low and sloped down to six feet in height and he had to duck slightly as he investigated the rows of wooden shelves storing a fine collection of notebooks and writing accessories. To his left stood a lone book rack made of a simple black iron which contained a number of handcrafted notebooks. From the accessories box he snapped up a Faber-Castell Uniball, black ink, mid tip pen and rolled it between his fingers admiring the keen attention to ergonomic detail. The pen was triangular with rounded edges and a comfortable black rubber casing. Perfect. Just perfect.

       He went to the back wall and lifted a black Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebook from off of the shelf and ran his hand over the cover, frowning. For the last two weeks now he had blanketed the city searching for these notebooks; now not even Colby’s Books or Bult’s had copies anymore. He had one now though, finally, and waves of calm flowed through him. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Best use it wisely, he thought and put the book under his arm and turned to leave. But instead of going straight to the cashier’s counter he drifted over to the small bookrack he has seen earlier and twirled it slowly.

       It’s slightly bent axis vocalized a soft click–click–click as he eyed the selection of handmade notebooks. He was hypnotized by their beauty. From afar they didn’t look like much, but up close they shone. A white and grey hard bound journal with a water color of the Taj Mahal leaned next to one made of a tough brown leather with side stitching. He slid the Faber-Castell next to an expertly bound notebook adorned with a stylized Asian dragon sitting atop a steep mystical mountain. Propped there next to it made the Faber-Castel look dull and withered.

       He stood back and scratched his neck. It was clear: his notebook was in there somewhere.

       He gave the bookrack another spin–this time with force. The books blurred passed–click-click-click-click-click-click-click. His head turned in tight circles as he tried to focus on one of the books. Nothing came. Random–to hell with the old man and purpose and all that junk–what he wanted was the book to select him. He leaned closer, but nothing happened. Annoyed, he swatted at the rack and it clacked faster. He hit it again. And again. With each hit his anger rose. He swung harder and it tilted from side to side. The fact that it didn’t fall enraged him and he swung at the rack. It swayed and lurched but didn’t fall. He leaned back and gave it one final smack–as he did so, one thought, crystal clear in snowflake white, shone in his head: that fuckin’ bitch.

       The bookrack crashed to the floor. His mind filled with old images of her and he sagged to the floor with his head in his hands, the plastic Solbey’s bag slumped at his side. That fucking bitch. He saw her as he remembered her best: cinematically. It was a sunny day in July and they had taken the midmorning bus up to Madeleine Falls. Whipperwills wafted through the air of ambrosia. They ate brunch on a blanket and headed to the falls where she leapt up onto the deck’s wall and skipped about. He asked her to come down, –you might hurt herself–but she was emboldened by his ticklishness and broke into a little Judy Garland song and dance number, her legs kicking out while she raised her tattered umbrella high over her shoulder. Behind her, the waterfall roared with applause. He snapped a picture and she jumped into his arms, laughing.

       He sobbed, but didn’t cry. Couldn’t cry. There were no more tears; like a wet newspaper, anger, frustration, and shame seeped out of him thickly, blackly. Inside of himself he felt the familiar hollow, the sleepy hollow that remained after she had left him and now completely drained him. He wanted to go home and go to sleep. He dragged the bookrack up onto his lap and shoved the notebooks back into their slots and after they were in place, half dazed he picked himself and the book rack from up off of the floor. As he did so a notebook slid out and landed on the hardwood.

        He looked over his shoulder towards the front of the store sure that the old man would be marching down the aisle to see what all the racket was about, but there was no sign of him. Only the yellow legal notepad remained sitting atop the counter. The store was as silent; as an empty coffee mug.

       He edged over to the book, circled it. He hadn’t noticed this one when he looked before. He bent down on his hands and knees to get a closer look. It was extraordinarily plain: handmade, constructed of a tough recycled cardboard, no pictures, no ornamentation; not dark not light, just a simple tan peppered with darker flecks. On all fours he bent over the book and sniffed it, then stood up. From this high angle it looked like some strange doorway bolted into the ground. Where does it lead?

        He swept the book up off of the floor. Its craftsmanship was simple yet impressive. Long-stitched with a sturdy brown leather cord that wrapped around the recycled cardboard cover and tied in a neat little knot in the front, its parchment-like pages were blank except for a thin line that stretched across the top. Other than that it was blank. Good. No obstructions, he thought jamming the power cord back into his plastic back and rushing back to the counter.

        ”I, ah, got a book,” Thomas said laying it on the counter and standing back to play with the frayed edges of his coat sleeve. Where did he come from? he wondered. He was sure the old man hadn’t been there a minute ago. Was it really just a minute ago? Time seemed to tug and warp around the density of the situation and he could no longer be sure how long he had been in the store. He brushed his confused thoughts aside. “Oh and this pen.”

       “No problem,” the Chinese man said ringing in the products. “I see you went with one of the handmade notebooks.” He turned and looked directly at Brimm, who noticed something dark hunched in his arched asian eyes. He had switched again. The intellectual had evaporated, the friendly sage had sulked off, and now there was this. This what? Brimm edged away from the counter incapable of taking his eyes off of the old man who bore through him with his faded brown eyes. He was looking through Brimm. Passed his skin and fat cells and into his blood stream and beyond that into his leukocytes and plasma. With out warning, the dark thing darted away and the old man sagged back in his seat. His eyes faded to beige, he mumbled “Brimm” three or four times then snapped upright, “Ah-ha! I got it! You know the one: ‘Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And Life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim?’”

       “Ah, no,” Thomas said, worried that the little Chinese man would start speaking in tongues again.

       “That’s Byron. You like Byron?”

       “Yeah, of course,” Brimm said his eyes skipping over the countertop and the shelves behind it. The faux cherry wood clock read 12:55. I’ve been here for a fuckin’ hour! How the hell did that happen?

       “Byron sure loved to, ya know, baboom-boom, huh? Had maybe, like a thousand flumpities as he like to call them. And as many men too! And little boys, I think he mostly preferred little boys.” Brimm watched as the Chinese man’s color deepened, then his hair-line fracture of a mouth cracked open and he wheezed with laughter. “That’s a lot of baboom-boom, isn’t it Mr. Brimm?”

       Thomas handed over ten bucks, the old man took it his shoulders still shaking with laughter and dug in the cash register for change.

       “But, do you know who Byron’s real love was? I mean, love, you know? Not the baboom-boom kind, but love.” He was all marble statued seriousness now.

       “No, no I don’t.”

       “Botswain.”

       “Botswain?” Thomas said eyeing the door.

       “Yeah, this great big huge Newfoundland dog. That dog was the true love of his life. Byron never got over it, losing that dog. He even had a monument made when she die.” The Chinese man leaned forward, arched an eyebrow. “What about you Thomas Brimm?” he asked holding out Brimm’s change. “You got a baboom-boom buddy? Huh? Huh? She must be worry now. It’s late and Christmas is tomorrow, you know?”

       Thomas grabbed the pen and notebook from off of the countertop and charged for the door. The old man called out after him–Hey mister your change!–but before he could finish, Brimm bolted through the door and headed out into the growing storm.

 

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

What happens here is a seaside story, a tale of shades in meaning.

   It’s my habit to stroll down to the waterfront and get a mug of black coffee with no sugar at Velma’s, a hunched diner tucked between the crook of a convenience store and a souvenir shop. This one morning I go inside and light a cigarette and watch the deep roots of blue smoke coil around the silver steam from my coffee mug. Bored, I looked out through the window and watched the mosh of activity hanging over the wharf. Here and there men wandered around with their heads down scuffing their boots along the weather-washed wooden planks, while overhead seagulls caught in silent screams arced through the air with a whoosh, a swoop, a dip and a hover.   

   A shadow spilled over my table and broke my reverie. What I thought was an old man stood there before me, but I couldn’t be sure. I squinted against the bright light trying to catch a glimpse of his face but his hands formed a circle around it and this had the effect of blotting his face out. To this day I can only recall a thin tuft of hair that the wind whipped straight across his forehead, snapping it like a tattered flag.   

   He bent over and picked up an old bucket and it swung, creak, creak, creaking in the wind. A shower of rusty flakes tumbled to the ground and trailed behind him as he ambled over to the far corner of Velma’s storefront window. He stopped there and with a slight nod he plunked the rusty old bucket, dented and deformed, onto the sidewalk. He reached into it and pulled out a sopping black rag. It was dirty, dark or both; smeared brown grey black and sagged like the soggy arse of his overalls.    

   With a heavy thump he splattered the rag onto the window and a thick black sludge seeped out of it and in a slow almost hypnotic counterclockwise motion, the faceless old man spread the black ooze over the window.    

   From the table next to me I heard a girl tut and mumble something about the guy being a crazy bum or something. She flipped her bottle blond hair over her starched white collar and rearranged her proud red polo sweater. Her boyfriend in DKNY crinkled his eyebrows into a steeple and confessed that he felt so sorry for the guy, that he probably lost his boat during the crisis, and that they should go easy on him. Ya know, give peace a chance. They stared at each other stone-faced and then slowly, imperceptibly, their facial muscles stretched and cracked and the girl burst out a mule bark that sent lettuce leaves and half chewed mushrooms cascading over the table. Their bodies fell forward, laughing. “Shut up, Jimmy. You idiot.”    

   Meanwhile, the old man kept at it: hauling the bucket, sopping his rag and smearing the thick dark grime over the window. Bit by bit a deep, dense blackness drowned the other side of the room.  

  Food was forgotten; coffee went cold. One girl twisted and knotted a paper napkin in her hands and leaned over to her girlfriend whispering that she thought he was that politician guy who murdered his family, all five of’em shot in the head, execution style. That guy who locked himself in his house and no one ever heard from again. That maybe it was him, that guy, ya know? That Mr. Gein guy, wasn’t it? Another group, mid-thirties, with Blackberries sprinkled between half eaten club sandwiches heard that the old man was an immigrant, a Math professor from the Old Country who couldn’t make a go of it here.

   Outside the rusty bucket continued to scrap along the sidewalk while inside the failing light was filled with whispers. Some said he was a failed artist or something and still others murmured guesses that I couldn’t quite catch, guesses that buzzed by my ears.   

   Minutes passed and the darkness stretched across the room. Like a lunar eclipse, over half the room was drowned in darkness; while the other half, my half, rested in a milquetoast light. The room was silent now. Hesitant. The clink of saucers and cups died down and the scraping of forks and knives on porcelain died down too. And one by one the rumors and whispers became murmurs and murmurs, hushes, and the hushes finally died down to silence.   

   Everyone watched as the old man toiled away blacking out the window, In short order only a small circle of light remained. This circle sat in front of my table and I felt nervous. His work, I presumed, was almost done. I squinted into the darkness trying to see across the room, but the girl with the starched halo collar had disappeared, her boyfriend too. In fact, the whole room had disappeared; the darkness swallowed everything. 

   I leaned forward and looked out through the remaining hole of light.  I saw the old man looming there before me, but he was a blur. A large bulky shape–a general idea that I couldn’t make out.  

   I watched as he reached down into his bucket and pulled out the black rag, the sludge dripping off of it and onto the sidewalk, and slowly he stretched it out towards the last circle of light. The rag grew larger as it neared me and then, with one final swipe, the old man shut the window’s eyelid.

   And with this final counterclockwise motion the gulls and the wharf and the boats and the meandering old men with shaggy beards, they all disappeared. At the last second, before total darkness fell, I leaned forward and saw the old man’s hands: they were smooth.

   The whole restaurant rested in darkness. Behind the blackened glass I could barely make out the old man’s outline. It was indistinct and vague; a ghostly black shape that hovered scarcely visible behind the mucky black window. It wavered there, considering. Then it drifted to the center of the window and stopped.   

   The ghostly smudge, the faceless and shapeless and undefined old man, raised a faint arm and there in the middle of the window a point of bright white light appeared. I thought I could see a fingerprint, but the light was too bright and I doubted that ghosts had fingerprints anyway.    

   And then the point of light moved forming circles and arcs and lines and what I thought were some old runes or letters began to take shape.    

   No one moved and the only sound was a longwinded intake of breath from somewhere far off in the back of the room. And when the outline’s shadow drifted away, there in the darkness, blearing through in an angelic white light, was the following:     

   “Do you see me now?”